


Aftermath

by kiki_miserychic



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Drug Use, Episode: s01e22 The Honeymoon, Gen, M/M, Male Slash, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiki_miserychic/pseuds/kiki_miserychic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretenses upon pretext.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

The sound of a key being slipped home with the pretense of trying to be quiet had brought House back to his surroundings. His eyes were closed, but knew he was halfway between the couch and the piano. On the floor. With a pool of his own vomit a few inches from his cheek. Fucking beautiful. The doorknob twisted and announced the entry of Dr. Wilson, the only other person to have a key to this apartment, for sheer convenience, who wasn’t already in it. In the second it took for recognition, House surmised that the good doctor had once again come to play the White Knight Savior Prince and other assorted mixed metaphors.

"Christ, Greg." There wasn’t surprise in his voice, more the tone of a child after they’re told there’s no Santa Claus, which House had never believed and never will, thank you very much. Only the child wasn’t a child, he was in his late thirties. When Wilson called him by his first name, he knew there was something serious going on, but his mind couldn't seem to wrap around the events.

"Mmmmggaann." House opened his mouth and words came out like they were wrapped in cotton and bathed in Orajel. Rolling over onto his back was a feat of epic proportions that were worthy of an Olympic medal or at least another shake of the pill bottle.

"What have you done?" A cocktail of disappointment, empathetic remorse, and maybe even a trace of resentment. House let his eyes fall closed again because he knew even the moon would be too bright for his sensitive retinas at this point in his hang over. Or was he still drunk? He didn’t know for sure because all he could do was catalog every place that hands were touching him. His skin felt too tight to move in and his sinews protested to the finger that calculated his pulse, then advanced to checking the dead tissue in his leg like it mattered.

"Thought about going to a bar, getting piss drunk, and starting a fight, but why go out when I can do that in the comfort of my own home?” House found his voice once again. It rested adjacent to his reserve of lethal sarcasm and somewhat to the left of his self-deprecation.

“Get up.” A command which House didn’t want to adhere to, yet he felt his body moving into an upright position. Finally opening his eyes, his right hand gripped unsteadily at the corner of the coffee table like sense memory searching out the nearest wood surface. He had been right about his eyes not being able to handle the light, but he had been wrong about the source. It must have been later than he thought because disgustingly yellow strands of sunlight were crowding into his apartment.

“Who sent you?” He contemplated the possibilities as he raised himself, wondering if Wilson would have come over on his own or left him to his own devices, but about halfway to standing his hand slipped from the edge. His mind was quicker than his body and he expected to meet with the floor, but a warm body was there to hold him up with an arm secured around his torso and a splayed hand on his sternum. House rejoiced in the fact that his authentic CBGB T-shirt, not that vintage knock off crap teenagers these days are purporting, was unharmed in the incident. He doubted most of them knew what the Omfug meant.

“Your colleagues seemed to recall a certain bottle containing certain pills being put into a certain person’s pocket.” The beginning of the sentence had started out far more light-hearted than the rest of it had finished.

“Come off it. We both know I took it for shock value and nothing more.” House regained most of his footing again. The buttons at the cuff of Wilson’s pale blue shirt were undone and House noted the matching suit jacket resting over a stylishly professional briefcase.

“Rest assured, it was a shocked voice that called me at six in the morning.” Wilson shifted his weight and took what weight House allowed him to carry along.

“I can get there on my own.” House contemplated shoving Wilson away to make his point, but he decided he’d acted like a foolish child enough for one day and pushing Wilson would do nothing but ensure his landing on the floor.

“Put your full weight on me and stop trying to act like a big manly . . . man.” He was still trying to maneuver the larger man to where he wanted him to go.

“But what will you think of me in the morning, James?” House batted his eyelashes in the manner of a blushing housewife, but the action left him with a growing headache.

“It is morning, House, and you’ll still be the same asshole you are now.” They made their sluggish, yet deliberate way to the main bedroom. After a deep inhale from the more physically impaired of the two, weight was redistributed, reminding Wilson that not all of House’s muscles lacked exercise. If anything, his other muscles worked even more so than the average person. Involuntarily Wilson’s mouth corked into a tight smirk trying not to betray that he had asked for more than he bargained for.

“I’m thinking of asking for an intern. A cute, innocent, impressionable little puppy to play fetch me.” Keeping the atmosphere light.

“You already have three people under you who jump at your every whim and you still want more?” Wilson had a point, but House dismissed the notion.

“It’s not a question of wanting more. It’s me wanting another spirit to corrupt, crush, and mold into something I could place on my mantle. I’m thinking the skittish and over eager nerd in the diagnostic lecture. He has potential. I think I could make that one cry; I like it when I make them cry because it makes me feel all warm and gooey inside.” Even he could hear the hollowness in his voice as he spoke in sporadic and disjointed sentences through gritted teeth. In reality Cuddy had come to him with a startled and slightly horrified look the morning after his class to inform him that the intern, who had been sitting in the front row, requested to be placed into his department.

“Shut up.” Out of any other person’s mouth House would take the statement as an insult, but from Wilson it almost translated to a sigh. “And don’t lie,” an afterthought that entered his mind, knowing that House would avoid every single student in that classroom for the remainder of their careers and lives. The mood evolved back into something more charged with unresolved anger that refused to ease away. "You still can't take an active role, even in your own attempted suicide, can you?"

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. It doesn’t suit your Shakespearean ideals.” The bedroom looked like the room of a teenage boy had collided with a library. There were stacks of meticulously arranged and labeled video games, records, DVD’s, and MP3 mixes intermingled freely with medical journals and dictionaries. The video games ranked according to amusement; the MP3’s by ambiance; journals by publication; textbooks by intrigue; and DVD’s by most frequently watched.

“I always knew there would be something that would drive you to drink while on your medication.” Wilson thought that the distance between them and the eternally unmade bed was much too far, getting a cramp that pinched between his shoulder blades. He had wanted to help more, but thought acting as more than a wall to lean on would further irritate a situation that he wasn’t exactly pacifying with his comments. He supposed that was part of what it was like to be House, knowing when to keep quiet and when to go against that feeling.

“Yeah. Should have let him die. At least I wouldn’t feel this bad.” They both wondered briefly if that statement was true as they disengaged from one another. He didn’t so much settle himself into the bed as fall back, minding his leg.

“The last time you were stupid enough to have copious amounts of alcohol with your meds was at my wedding. You probably don’t even remember me having to leave the reception to take you home.” He left out the part where he refused other people’s offers to take the unconscious best man. The task of removing shoes had to be made to look less like charity or pity and more like efficiency to past House’s standards. Wilson knew that sleeping in jeans was an awful feeling to wake up to, but that mission couldn’t be undertaken in the guise of effectiveness.

“Which time?” House felt morose and melancholy like a personified Smashing Pumpkin ballad. He kept his fully functioning leg hanging off the end of the bed, resting on the wood floor with the other propped up on a mountain of pillows that invariably took residence toward the foot of the bed.

“My last wedding we just took you passed out in the limo. Julie still can’t understand why you insist on making an ass of yourself in public.”

“How is dear Julie?” Oh yeah, let’s wallow in self pity.

“We’re taking some time apart. More time apart.” Off the sideways look received from under raised eye lids. “Which basically means I’m heading toward another divorce.”

“To boldly go where no man has gone before. Oops, maybe not.” His face the very picture of mock innocence straight off a bottle of suntan lotion. “Always a next time.” He tried for cross and rude, but came off wistful. Knowing Wilson still loved her, like all his other wives, girlfriends, and orgasms. He’s the kind of person who always will. He can’t stand the thought out someone hating him, but secretly wishes someone would.

“A next time minus half my estate.” You’d think a man like Wilson would have become acquainted with a pre-nup, but he went into every new marriage bright eyed and bushy tailed. Thankfully, all his divorces ended amicably with minimal mess and him forking over his belongings not as a means of an apology, but a consolation prize. In his darker, more spiteful moods, House thinks of Wilson as a boy playing a video game, continually pressing the restart button.

“Why do you keep marrying them when you can get the milk for free as they say?” Wilson flashed his boyish grin as he leaned over the bed, but House couldn’t tell if it was because of the comment or something else because his skin was once again being assaulted with the pretext of checking for clammy skin.

“Calling my wives cows, are you?” Digits raced around his left forearm and he had to close his eyes to block out perceiving more meaning then there was. Wilson was the kind of doctor to add the human touch, making his patients love him and always scheduled follow ups in a timely fashion.

“On the contrary, I’m calling you a milk maid.” Hoping that was close enough to an insult to not be questioned.

“Your leg still hurt?” Duh, House wanted to say, but strangely kept his mouth shut because his knee and lower thigh were being inspected from over his pants by the observant eyes of a watchful doctor with an excellent bedside manner. There wasn’t enough pressure on the surface to create more than tingles and twinges of feeling in the areas around his thigh.

“Not as much.” House conceded and Wilson sat on the edge of the bed, facing House in what looked like an uncomfortable position between House’s extended legs. One would think that they would be tired of pretension at some point.

House leaned in closer, smelling the unmistakable scent of lingering hospital disinfectant that never goes away and underlying soap. His hand hovered beside Wilson’s hip, not moving, not knowing what to do. A piece of Wilson’s hair fell down in front of his forehead, breaking free from the rest. House wanted to do something sickeningly sweet like brush it back behind his ear and kiss him within an inch of his life. Instead he grabbed and held onto the fabric that hung loosely around Wilson’s mid-section. Screw it.

“Tell me ‘no’; make me stop,” comes out in House’s exhale, like a thought given voice. His fingers are clenched around the fabric of Wilson’s dress shirt and the joints were stiff and felt close to snapping. Wilson ignored the request. Instead he ghosted the palm of his hand over the harsh denim material of the outside seam in House’s jeans, over the bunched up pocket. They were too close to do anything but taste each other’s breath in erratic gasps.

Wilson lifted his thumb in an effort to smooth away the tension in House’s facial wrinkles, starting with the area between his eyes and tracing the eye socket until he reached the cheekbone. House felt his resolve starting to melt away as he watched the sheer hope and promise of Wilson’s face in an intense stare.

“Don’t. Just don’t.” He tried to shrug off the touch casually, but his movement came off more like a convulsion than anything. “Cameron only wanted me because she thought she could fix me; same reason she’s a doctor. You, you like the idea of me because know you can’t fix me, which is the reason you’re an oncologist.”

God had an ironic sense of humor because He choose that moment for the phone to let out a shrill ring that tipped them out of their head space. There was a cordless phone head set next to House, but he made no move to answer it or even glance at the caller ID box. Wilson shook his head and walked out of the room to the phone ringing in unison from the piano bench with a despondent greeting waiting to be uttered.

House considered the pros and cons, then lifted the phone receiver along with his eyebrows to listen in on the conversation that had been deemed “restricted” by a little grey box. The first few words were jumbled and didn’t register, but after making his breathing as shallow as possible the words began to make sense.

“...fault. Are you still in love with him?” That had been Wilson’s voice with the half a second behind hushed whisper falling like a shadow from the living room.

“Are you?” House would know that voice if it three floors above him in an elevator. Stacey. The stunned and disbelieving silence that followed the question prompted House’s morbidly masochistic side to wait out the pause for the answers, but his even more morbid side made his finger press the disconnect button and let out his last breath in a rushed and unfounded sense of relief.

House had expected to hear the crash of technology being thrown into the wall from the other room or at least the slam of harshly laying down the phone. Instead he heard a faint beep and Wilson reappeared in the doorway, looking weary.

“How are you doing? Any more dizziness, loss of consciousness, nausea . . . ” The doctor facade creeping back over his features.

“It was the alcohol and Vicodin combined, not an overdose. My breathing is fine, no seizure, no clammy skin, my pupils are normal, and I’m not in a coma. I puked from the alcohol, any weakness can be attributed to my previous injury, I’m tired because I’m old and because I’m stupid for drinking. Nothing more.” House tried to sound more like a confident doctor with his own medically based opinion rather than a patient who hated being wrong above all. Some days he succeeded, but sometimes he knew it was a losing battle. He hadn't looked at his pupils in days.

“Let me take your pulse again.” Wilson pushed up his left sleeve to look at his watch, wrapped his fingers around the easiest accessible wrist and began counting. In truth, he was more worried about dysphoria and kidney problems.

“No, don’t touch me.” House snapped at him and knew it might not have been the wrong thing to say, but it certainly wasn’t the right thing.

“I’m your doctor.” As if that meant something that any other title couldn’t convey.

“I’m fine. You can leave now.” Maybe the trick to the conversation was avoiding eye contact.

“You treat your humanity like it’s a disease that can be suppressed with emotions that only involve snark and downright rudeness.” If the situation hadn’t been so serious, House would have laughed and drawn a doodle of Wilson and the vein about to rupture near his temple. But it was serious, so House averted his sight in a nonchalant way as if he were rolling his eyes.

“If anyone in this situation is diseased, it’s you.” He couldn’t understand why Wilson was friends with him, but that’s one mystery he refused to investigate, dreading that any examination would cause the delicate balance to collapse. And here he was, trying to make a royal mess out of it anyway because never could leave that radio alone as a child. No, he had to take it apart and see the inside of it. He wasn’t happy with listening to the sounds it produced. He had to know how and why. Then he was surprised when he couldn’t put everything back together.

“Is that what I am to you? An affliction: the cough you can’t seem to shake, the sniffles that won’t go away, the persistent pain?” He wasn’t hitting as close to home as he thought he was, but it was in the same stadium none the less.

“You’re not understanding.” A subdued whisper that wasn’t meant for ears, but it was heard.

“Then explain it to me with your infinite fucking wisdom, Greg, because I am just not worthy enough to be graced with the prior knowledge.” A shaking hand reached up to wretch his tie back and forth away from his constricting throat.

“It’s not . . . it won’t . . . I know . . . when it doesn’t . . . do you think,” all in a jumble of false starts and stumbling for words, while Wilson stood there with his arms crossed over his chest. Waiting. “When this, no, when I mess this up, that’s the end.”

“Wh-?” Wilson started only to be cut off.

“Do you think Cuddy will keep me on after? There’s not enough guilt in the world to keep her from firing me when it’s done.”

“Your career? Are you kidding me? You hate your job. Try again.” A short laugh followed by a stony gaze.

“That’s n . . . When I lost my leg I lost more than a function, I lost everything.” Trying to put things into the rights words continued to prove to be a challenge.

“You didn’t lose your leg. Nothing was taken from you besides the use of the muscles in your thigh, which I’ll be the first to admit was wrong. You’re not your leg or your relationships. When you say you lost everything, you lost it on your own. I was there, so don’t pretend that one blood clot ruined your life. I will never believe that one event dictates the rest of a person’s life. And neither do you.” Tightly controlled anger thinly veiled with a coating of clipped phrases and Wilson’s determined face.

“You’re not listening to me. Take away my leg, take away Stacey, take away my freedom, take away . . . and you end up with this. I don’t have much left and when you leave, I’m not sure what will still be there.” And there it was. Laid out on the table. Open wide like wound waiting for salt with a lemon chaser.

“I,” James Wilson hesitated for mere seconds, not knowing what to say and House took that moment to block everything back.

“This conversation is done. Chalk it up to the residual alcohol, the early hour, my annoyance with tv repeats, call it an overdose for all I care. I’m done.” With that, House turned his head to study the various spines of CD’s that lined his walls.

“I’m not leaving.” Well, shit. He intended to stand there as long as it took for House to acknowledge his view. The silence stretched on with Wilson glaring at House, who stared at nothing and pretended that Wilson wasn’t glaring at him while he acted like nothing was going on except the movement of sunlight creeping over the walls. They were both going to be late this morning. That is if they ever made it out of this room without Wilson drilling a hole into House’s skull with his eyes.

House denied Wilson’s presence in the room openly, but over time he observed the tail tell signs that the other doctor was backing down. His head tilted to the side, he experimentally relaxed his body from the built up strain, and his face dissolved back into the pleasant look.

“I’m sorry.” Wilson was nothing if not accommodating. “If you say you feel fine and judging by the living room, you got enough sleep last night, then you may as well come into work with me. It’s not like you’ll do anything today if you can help it. Cuddy won’t know the difference whether you stay home and sulk or mope around the hospital.” Wilson knew he shouldn’t let the conversation defuse this way, but what else could he do?

“I think I’ll opt to play video games in your office and bother the oncology staff today. It’ll give mine a chance to rest, so I can lull them into a false sense of security and then bombard them when they least expect it.” They could do this. They could act like nothing happened because they did it every day, but they were getting tired.

A stifled laugh, “I’ll be waiting,” and Wilson left the room.

When House was finally ready, he stopped to survey the property damage from his night of debauchery, but found that the living room had already been cleansed of all evidence.

They were late.


End file.
